Battle for Wesnoth – A free open-source turn-based strategy game. One of those games where you control an army and a base+commander to summon more units. The aim is (usually) to kill the enemy commander, controlling random houses along the way to gain gold (which goes towards unit upkeep as well as recruiting costs). Comes with plenty of fun campaigns that make it really easy for a beginner to pick up the basics and start playing. A breath of fresh air compared to a lot of strategy games’ steep learning curves. The more experienced users, however, will be satisfied by the depth of the game mechanics – there are hundreds of variables affecting the gameplay (everything from terrain modifiers to units levelling up and gaining abilities). Incredibly fun to play as is, but here’s the best part: there’s a huge community constantly creating new maps, campaigns etc that can be downloaded directly from the game. Plenty of really innovative ones too – one actually transformed it into a turn-based RPG where you control an elf that can level up and gain skills. Another campaign lets you play as a huge slime blob who divides up when attacked – the smaller parts can then infect enemy units and turn them into blobs. Highly recommended game.

Cart Life – Free and awesome. Check it out.

Civilization 5 – Super detailed! But surprisingly easy to grasp and just start playing without losing too much from the gaming experience. Great fun.

Closure – Got this from the Humble Bundle pack! Basically pay what you want to get a bunch of games from indie developers. If you pay $1, you get Steam tags with that and if you pay the average price (about $6 atm) you get an additional 5 games (including Dungeon Defenders and Legends of Grimrock!). In the end, I decided not to pay that shiz just to save those few extra dollars for my Football Manager fund. Really wanted to try out those two bonus games though. Anyway, Closure is a decent puzzle game. You basically need to get from the start to finish point by lighting up the way with an orb – if you try to walk outside the orb’s glow, you’ll fall into the shadowz.

Far Cry 3 – I’m not convinced by the racist/sexist undertones being explained away by the supposed fact that the entire game is a parody of all the regular white burden tropes. That shit flew over 99% of gamers’ head and the creators had to doggedly defend the overt subtlety. Just saying that something is a satire doesn’t make it so. Great game nonetheless. Sort of a cross between GTA and Skyrim. The models for the pirates and their AI get repetitive after a while, but there’s plenty of action going on to compensate for the game’s shortcomings.

Football Manager 2013 – I’m spending way too much time on this.

Free Orion – Free download, haven’t got around to playing it though.

Glest – A free real-time strategy game. The typical build-buildings-and-units-to-battle format but everything runs at a pretty fast pace. Requires a fair amount of planning beforehand to cut losses and not get overrun by the enemy – which has pretty good AI too. In my first game, I got cut down by a batch of archers. When I sent my troops to charge at them, I got hit in the flank by a second group of enemies.

(Binding Of) Isaac – Another one from the Humble Bundle. Kind of like one of those flash arcade games on kongregate etc, but it’s quite fun anyway! There’s a nice feel to the game and plenty of ‘replayability’. One of the creators is featured in the Indie Game: The Movie that came with the Humble Bundle. I probably enjoyed the movie more than any of the games, it was just really good.

Mass Effect 3 – Just started playing this one and it’s really fun!

Minecraft – Dude. I don’t even know what I’m doing, just going around throwing blocks of shit everywhere

Ragnarok Online private servers – Well, I keep coming back to this one. RO2 has been released and I’ve heard some good reviews so you could check that one out.

Shank 2 – Another one from the Humble Bundle. It’s an ‘arcade’-ish game but it’s actually pretty fun! One of my favorite from the Humble Bundle so far.

Snapshot – Haven’t tried this one yet.

Total War – Shogun 2 – In the process of downloading.

Witcher 2 – It’s pretty awesome. Very annoying when it comes to picking up items etc, but there’s an interesting storyline and the way it unfolds is fantastic. The gameplay itself is alright, kind of wanted more from the spells though.

XCOM – Still in the midst of downloading, but all the reviews I’ve read (and trust) point to it being something right up my alley.